Alternatives

A/N: For any who have read my other fic, this one is actually going to be serious rather then random commentary on things I notice in fanfic. If I don’t suck completely as a writer, this should be a rather dark story. I know the evil Dumbledore has been done before, but I hope that rather then writing him as evil, I can do something new in presenting him as simply having a radically different moral code witch just looks evil. Feed back is encouraged, even if you want to tell me I suck. I still work solo, so sorry for any mistakes I missed.

Alternatives

Prelude

There exists a world. In this world, a man named Albus works for a life time for peace, acceptance, and the greater good. In this world a man named Tom dose terrible things, and tries to kill a boy named Harry. In this world, Harry and Albus stop Tom from hurting the innocent and there is equality and justice after.

This is a very different world then the one in witch this story takes place. This story happens in a reality full of corruption very different from the other. In this world, Albus is neither a nice man nor a good man. In this world, Tom and Harry are both used as puppets. In this world, equality and justice are a carefully created illusion.

It is best to start at the beginning of a story, so we begin with exactly that. Over 1,000 years ago, four friends decide that with the wizarding population growing exponentially, the time has come to break away from children learning the craft from a family Book of Shadows or dangerous experimentation alone, but rather from a school taught by those versed in the latest magical methods. This is indeed a good thing, as the muggleborn are a new phenomena and the accidental magic of the children left undeveloped draws the worst kind of attention to the magic users.

This however creates a new problem, both in the creation of the first wizarding academe in history, and among the friends. You see, the religion of Brittan at the time of it’s formation was just shifting to Christianity. The new converts to the church were taught to fear and kill the pagans and the sorcerers who they looked to for wisdom and healing and good crops. Sadly for the wizards, this meant they now had to always be watchful of attacks, for wand or no, a flaming arrow to the head was still to lead to death.

Fearful of the new religion, Salazar Slytherin wanted the muggleborns to take an oath before they could enter to ensure the safety of all their students. Though the magic of unplottable places had been recently developed, one Christian child who had attended could lead a whole army to the castle, and what match would 4 teachers and a bunch of children be against an army? Luck was not in his cards, though.

Seeing an opportunity, Rowena Ravenclaw found this to be a good way to turn the others against Salazar. She clamed the man she had never liked was prejudice, rather than cautious and was just trying to scare the muggle raised away, and further accused him of using dark spells. After that failed to turn her fellow founders away, she resorted to her specialty, mind magic, and to the present day, few outside of the direct ancestors of Slytherin know the truth of his reason for leaving the school.

This intentional alteration of the facts was not the last, and in fact such things happen quite often in this world. However, we will skip over the less relevant ones and to the birth of Albus. Having come from a long line of purebloods, it is no surprise that one of his direct ancestors would be a man known in history for hating muggles as well as a woman who drove him away from the first wizarding academe in history. Having had access to Ravenclaw’s Book of Shadows including the truth of those days, as well as a natural talent for mind magic, Albus comes to the conclusion that there really isn’t such a thing as good or evil, only power and those afraid to take it, and the powerful are the ones who write history to create the illusion of good and evil.

He had also found that if the purebloods were willing to carefully arrange marriages so that the families may have access to progressively more powerful Books of Shadows, then the key to his obtaining power was in these very books, but to marry many women was forbidden, and it would become apparent what he was doing if he had too many widows. When he came to learn that when a line ended, the book would go to a trusted member of the community who was then to teach others the content if light magic, or guard it if dark magic, he formed his plan.

In the years he spent attending Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witch craft as well as those to follow, Albus very carefully arranged through any means he could to appear both powerful and benevolent, so he would be sure to become the trustee of the family books. In the process of working his way into the desired position, he also realized that if he was in control of the oldest and most respected school known to wizards that he could not only wipe out the pureblooded lines, but also shape the beliefs of the muggleborns so they would follow him without question.

This brings us to Tom. Poor Tom was born under the worst sort of stars. From the very beginning he was to know hardships. His mother had been the heiress to the family book of shadows, but due to well placed compulsion charms was disowned for bedding and becoming pregnant by a muggle. Not only did she die alone in a hospital to bring Tom into this world, but his grandfather and uncle had also died long before he could try to meet them leaving him alone in the world. Add to this the fact that even with a disowned mother, he was the rightful heir to Salazar’s personal book, rather then one of his children’s, but it had been hidden from him, and leave him in the worst sort of orphanage and you have a rocky beginning for sure.

Had it not been for the fact that he was born with the gift to speak the snake language as well as a natural talent for mind magic, he may never have known of the betrayal that Albus had committed against his own cousins, nor would he have found out about the plan Albus had to rule the wizarding world. And had he not discovered this, Albus would never have had to vilify Tom as Tom worked to stop him.

In the course of this stand off, a war rose up. There were those who fought under the banner of The Light guided by Albus and were mostly muggleborns or those close to them, or under the banner of The Dark guided by Tom and were the purebloods that saw the truth of Albus’s plan. Many fought bravely for their cause in the war of Light and Dark, but as with any war, there is no real light side or dark side, merely death, suffering, and destruction on both sides.

The bloodshed finally subsided due to a prophesy. Both Tom and Albus knew of it but got very different meanings from it. Tom believed that the child foretold would prove him to be fighting for good and expose Albus for his crimes thus destroying the power of the Dark Lord. Albus, having called Tom a Dark Lord in his effort to keep him from power, thought the child to be the weapon he needed to solidify his power and win the war.

And so both men, seeing little Harry to be the child, find a way to the home of the Potters one night. The Potters, loyal to Albus, were to give him the child for safe keeping, but with the arrival of Tom and his general, Bellatrix, a fight broke out in the home, and by way of poorly explained ancient magic and coincidence, Tom appeared mortally wounded and was taken to safety by his general, Harry’s parents were killed, and little Harry received pieces of his parents souls and a portion of Tom’s power and knowledge.

Albus, though wounded as well, was under the belief that his side had won. In the next weeks, Bellatrix was arrested as a war criminal along with her cousin Sirius, Harry’s rightful legal guardian. Harry was placed with his mother’s sister, Petunia, who had been beside herself with grief and glad to care of her nephew. This, however, would not shape the boy as Albus planed, so Petunia and her family were magically convinced to hate and abuse him, so when Albus came back to train his magic, he would be a hero to the boy who was now a hero to the world.

As one may imagine, war and bribing the right people to arrest those you wish to disappear can get quite costly. In the time after the war, Albus recovered his finances by continuing work as headmaster of Hogwarts, where he was able to find the names of young witches and wizards, remove them from the school registry book a year or two before they would attend, and sell them as slaves to the highest bidder. As the only one with access to the registry book, it was a perfect plan, since he was the only wizard to see the absence, and a well placed memory charm kept family from looking for them. It also gave him the chance to make it look as if the heir apparent to Books of Shadows had died, giving him even more control and power then winning the war had.

Perfect is of course a relative term, and a group of war orphans would prove this in due course. First, though, they would have to endure years of physical and sexual torment, be rescued from the human aggressors by vampires, train as hunters, and discover hidden talents, and finally meat Albus again. Though the path would be difficult, it would give them the power and skill they would need to finally make things right for this world.